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At The Picket Fence with Vanessa Hunt

Where Ideas for your Home Meet Inspiration for your Heart

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April 28, 2011

Blogging 101: Photo Editing

Or also known as Picasa…it’s free, so learn how to use it! 


Welcome to Part Two of Photography Tips for New (and not so new) Bloggers.  This is a part of our ongoing series Blogging 101.  You can revisit all of our Blogging 101 posts by clicking on the Blogging 101 Link in our sidebar.  


Today we will explore this great tool provided by Google.  This is available for anyone who has a google account, but is specifically linked to blogspot blogs.  Welcome to:



That place where all of the photographs you put in your blog post go to live! It is easy to access Picasa if you know where to look.  On your Blogger dashboard scroll all the way to the bottom until you see this:

This is how you can access Picasa Web Albums.  I highly recommend bookmarking your Picasa Album Homepage once you open it up for easy access in the future.  When you click on the Picasa Web Album Link, it will take you to a page that looks like this:


This is the home page of At The Picket Fence’s Picasa Web Albums.  We have created several different albums but if you are accessing this for the first time you will likely only have one default album where all of your blog pictures go.  Ours is the last one one located at the very bottom of the screen shot.  If you open this up you will see all of the photos you have ever uploaded to your blog, including graphics such as your header, sidebar grahics, buttons, etc.  Surprise!  Now you know where they are! Each photograph or graphic is given a url code by Picasa.  This is the url that is located in your posts.  It is the “address” of your photo or graphic.  If you delete a photo out of your picasa web album the photo will disappear from your blog.  So do not ever delete a photo out of your picasa album that you do not want to delete from your blog or a post!  So, in layman’s terms:  your photos do not actually exist on your blog.  Your blog posted is coded to “talk to picasa web albums” and to stream over the picture to the specific post it is coded into.  That is why often you will see a delay in photos when you access a blog or post, or you might see only half of the photo. There is a communication delay between Picasa (or whatever server someone might have their photos stored on such as Flickr, etc) and the actual blog post.  There are two ways you can place a photo into Picasa.  


Option One: You can upload it from your computer straight into your blog (as we demonstrated in our last 101 post) this is the way most people place a photograph(s) into their blog post.  But say this pictures needs a little tweeking and you don’t own photo editing software such as Photoshop, is there a way to still make your pictures look better?  Well, glad you asked because yes there is! Option Two: Is you can upload your photographs straight to Picasa.

First you will need to access your Picasa Web Albums as we noted above.  Then you will need to locate the option to upload photos, which is located in the dashboard above the list of your web albums (see above screenshot) This will allow you to upload photos straight into Picasa from your computer, bypassing Blogger for now.



Next you will chose to create a new album or you can choose an existing album.  Also you can choose the visibility of this specific album.  We choose anyone with link except for a few which we make private such as graphics we might create or new projects we don’t want public yet. Then you will select “continue” which will take you to your computer files where you will select the photo(s) you want to upload.  

I chose to upload this photo to our web albums.  You can see it is now uploaded to Picasa.  After you upload your photo there will be a button in the lower right hand corner titled “Ok” select this and your photo will now be placed in the album you selected.  At this point you will be redirected to that album. Scroll down and locate the picture you uploaded.  It should be the last picture in the album because it is the most recently uploaded.  Select that picture, and it will open up into a screen where it will be featured by itself.  




Now located the Edit button in the top right hand corner of your screen.  It will have an image of a sky next to it (as seen in this screenshot). Click on the Edit button and Picasa will open up the photo editing part of it’s website.  Welcome to Picnik!

Picnik is the FREE photo editing that Google provides to anyone with a Google Account!
Here is a screenshot of Picnik with my photograph located in it.  Here you have several options to edit your photographs and to create text, frames, graphics, etc.  Many of these are free a few are premiere options that you can pay a small fee and access. We will learn how to use a few of the free options to make our photos look better!


Up first we are going to resize our photograph.  Why you ask?  Because the larger the photograph the more space it takes up in your Picasa Album, and you are only allowed so much space before they will charge you a small fee to buy more space.  Afterall, it is free and they are going to make some money off of you eventually. grin.  So keep your sized as small as possible.  Here you can see mine was uploaded at 1944 X 2896 pixels.  That is because my camera is set at a large file setting.  This is fine for printing actual physical photographs but WAY too huge for a blog.  If you ever wondered why it takes so long to upload a photograph to your blog it’s most likely because you are uploading a HUGE file such as this one.  Here is where we can resize those photographs to a more managable size.  This allows you to have control over the EXACT size of your photograph so that when you place it in your blog and select “original” for the photo size (as we learned in our last 101 post) it will be the exact perfect size you like! I changed this photo to 600 height by 400 width)  I might resize it a little manually when it is place in the post using the edit html tip we learned, but I won’t know this until it is actually in the post so for now I approximate the size I want.  Make sure “Keep Proportions” is selected as seen in the snapshot or else your photograph will become distorted.  When you have it at the size you like select “Ok”.

Here is where you can now edit your picture to brighten it, sharpen it and fix your lighting.  There is a learning curve that everyone needs to go through when it comes to editing pictures.  I am still learning so much.  But here are a few tips I can pass on.  
The first thing I do when I edit a photo is neutralize the color.  Neutralize the color?  Have you ever had a picture that appeared too “yellow” or too “blue”?  This is because your white light was not balanced in the picture.  The picture to the left was taken on a cloudy day with very little natural light.  It washed out my whites and made them appear gray. I can fix this by choosing the Color option under Edit. Than selecting the “Neutral  Picker” Button on the dashboard (see above snapshot).  A small eyedropper will take the place of your cursor.  Place the eyedropper on any part of your photo that should be white and hit enter.  This will change the temperature of the white in your photograph to a more pure white.  If it is too yellow it will become a more “bluer” white, and vice versa if it is too blue.  You can than tweak this even more using the Temperature slider at the top.  Most photographs are too yellow, especially those taken at night or with a flash.   Once you get your whites corrected move over to the Exposure button. 

Exposure is where you can “brighten” your photo up to make up for lack of natural light, etc.  You can play with the sliders at the top but I like to use the Advanced feature.  In the Advanced feature you can tweak your photo even more by changing the highlights, shadows, brightness and contrast of your photograph.  











You can see to the right a screenshot of the settings I used to fix my photograph.  I usually select Local Contrast first, than play around with the settings until I achieve the look for my photograph that I like.  Be very careful with the Brightness option in Exposure.  Making your photo too bright can cause it too look “blown out”.  This is where the light or white colors in your photo become so bright you no longer see any contrast or details in the lighter portion.  Not good. smile. 



Now I suggest you return back to the Color option in editing and play around with the saturation until you like the strength of the colors in your photograph.  Be careful not to oversaturate as your photograph will start to look “fake” and not natural..as in…there is no grass on the face of the Earth that was ever THAT green! 😉

Up next you will want to sharpen your photograph.  Sharp photographs are what makes all the difference.  If you have a DSLR camera it will create pretty sharp pictures all on its own.  If you are using a “point and shoot” than selecting the macro setting for up close shots will help to sharpen the photograph (we will learn how to do this in the next 101 installment) but even the best photographs can often use a little more sharpening.  Sharpening a photograph brings out the details more that are often lost when an object is made two dimensional.  

 Choose the Sharpen option in Edit.  You can use the sliding scale to auto sharpen your photograph or if you’re daring select Advanced and play around with it.  Remember it is better to make it slightly less sharp than to over sharpen it thus pixilating your photograph. Slide the scale all the way to the right and you’ll see what I mean.  Play around with the sharpening too until you get the photograph as sharp as you’d like and select Ok. 

Now that you have your photograph edited and you are happy with the results.  You can move over to the Create tab of Picnik.  Here is where we can add text, frames, fun seasonal pictures, etc.  It is also where you an Touch-Up photographs of people such as remove blemishes, make people thinner (oh yes you can! grin) etc.  I won’t be showing these features since my photograph is a still life.  But you can play around with this option to see all that is available.  


For this demonstration we are going to create a frame and add text to our photograph.


First we will add a frame.  There are several options for frames in Picnik.  And we’ve used many of them on our photographs and graphics.  For this photo I am choosing Museum Matte.  This will give my frame an outer frame and an inner matte, just like a professionally  framed photograph.  I have the option to choose the color of both the frame and matte as well as the size.  This is where it’s fun to play around and get the look you like. In frames is where you can also round the edges of your photographs.  If you round your edges be sure to select transparency for your edges so your photograph will not show white corners on your blog if your background is not white. Play around with the different frames until you get the look you like.  Nothing is permanent until you select Apply. 

Next, we are going to add some text to our photograh.  This is where you can add a “watermark” or some type of identification to your photo.  It is also where you can add fun fonts to graphics or buttons. There are dozens of fonts available to you in Picnik.  Most are free some are premiere fonts you will have to purchase.  In the upper left hand corner you will type in the words you want to be located on your photo.  The words will appear over your photograph in a box and will be much large than you want.  You can reduce the size of the box until the text is the size you like.  You can also rotate the text.  If you would like the text to appear on several lines just return to the text box where you typed in your text and hit enter between the words to create several lines of text.  You can play around with the different fonts as long as are still within the text box you are working with.  If you want different lines of fonts on the same picture just create a different text box for each line of type and font and then move the boxes around to you like the layout.

Here is my text.  Reduced and placed in the lower right hand corner as a watermark. You can see the box around my text.  A window will open up as seen in the screenshot allowing you to choose the color of the font, the justification of the font as well as several other options you can play around with.  Once you have chosen the text you like.  You can save your photograph.











You have two option when saving your photograph.  You can replace the original or save the edited photograph as a new file.  I usually replace the original if I’m happy with my edited photo to save space in our Picasa Web Album.  Remember your original is still located on you computer.  I will create a new file if it is a blank graphic that I change often such as my Blogging 101 graphic.  That way I always have the blank original to work with.  



Here is my original and edited photo side by side:



Better??  I think so! So, are you wondering now how I created the Before and After photograph? Well I did that using Picasa 3 which can be downloaded onto your computer!  With Picasa 3 you can create collages, headers for your blog, add even more text….and it’s free as well!  See Google isn’t always a pain in the tooshie! grin!  Here is the link to download Picasa 3 software to your computer.  

Picasa 3 Software

I hope you have learned a few new tips and helpful hints in this session of our Blogging 101 Series.  While I use Adobe Photoshop for much of my photo editing, I believe Picasa is a great editing tool especially for free!  Photoshop can come with a fairly steep pricetag as well as a steep learning curve.  Picasa is the perfect tool for Bloggers who just want to make their pictures look better and to add some fun features.  It also provides an easy way to create you own headers and buttons. I have been really pleased with the editing options in Picasa…and Google and Picasa are not paying me in anyway to say all of this..grin!

Soon I will be sharing the last session of the photography portion of our Blogging 101 Series.  We will discuss simple and easy ways to TAKE better pictures.  Hopefully the combination of the three photography posts will help you achieve better photographs for your blog! So head on over to Picasa and start playing around with your photographs, can’t wait to see what you come up with! 

And don’t forget…there is still time to enter to win our MathBlaster Giveaway! Scroll down to the next post to find out more about how you can win this fabulous prize.
Even if you don’t want to enter the Giveaway, it’s worth taking a peek just to see Vanessa and and my nephew Ian doing their video review!


Looking forward to meeting you again soon at the fence!

This post is linked up to the following fabulous parties:

Green Door Designs: Saturday Spotlight

DIY by Design: Swing into Spring
Elements Interiors: Whassup Wednesday

19 Comments Filed Under: Blogging 101, Good Ideas

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Comments

  1. Pat says

    April 27, 2011 at 1:17 PM

    Wonderful post!

    Picasa was the first editing program I downloaded way back before I began blogging, through the recommendation of friends on a decorating forum I am a member of. So easy and does some great edits.

    Reply
  2. Shelia says

    April 27, 2011 at 1:54 PM

    Hi Heather! Thank you for these great tutorials. I didn’t even know you could edit photos like this until I started blogging. I haven’t used Picasa but use Photoscape. I’ll have to try the big “P”! 🙂
    Be a sweetie and have a wonderful day,
    Shelia 😉

    Reply
  3. trophyw.blogspot.com says

    April 27, 2011 at 2:16 PM

    Love the Blogging 101. I’ve used Picassa for years, but have never used the web album. I,m going to give it a try, but if my pics start looking good, people won’t recognize my blog.

    Reply
  4. Ann from On Sutton Place says

    April 27, 2011 at 4:06 PM

    Oh my gosh Heather thank you so much. I was just whining yesterday in my post about the quality of my pictures! Maybe this will help. I have struggled with camera skills since I started my blog. I don’t see much improvement since the beginning and I tend to get really frustrated. I am OK at the close ups but not so good at the far away pictures. Thanks again…you two should be so proud of your blog. It’s a delight! ~Ann

    Reply
  5. emilysnan says

    April 27, 2011 at 4:11 PM

    hiya heather , thanks for a grea tutorial , i am using picasa on my bog for a few weeks now but your tips are invaluable and soooo easy to follow , thanks again
    happy crafting /photography
    xmaggiex

    Reply
  6. Debbie says

    April 27, 2011 at 4:26 PM

    I will read this again and again just like I have done the other blogging 101 posts. They are excellent; I’m just technologically remedial so it takes me a time or twenty.

    Seriously, Heather, you should be writing this into a book for which you can earn money.

    Just a note:

    I did not put my name in for the math blaster because who in the WORLD would I give it to? We’re woefully deficient on kids around here.

    I did LOVE the video of Vanessa and her son. He is such a cutie patootie. If I had a son, I would want one like that. I just giggled all the way through to the dirty socks in the air.

    Reply
  7. Kelly says

    April 27, 2011 at 5:48 PM

    Great tips! Your blog is always so helpful. 🙂

    Kelly

    Reply
  8. rindercella @ neatheringourfest says

    April 27, 2011 at 6:57 PM

    i just started using piknic through flikr and i didn’t know what most of the stuff did! so this post was very informative – especially the “neutral picker” thing. I didn’t have a clue what that was. Great stuff – thanks for sharing! 🙂

    Reply
  9. michelle says

    April 27, 2011 at 7:11 PM

    I love Picasa and Picnik! These are great tips, thank you my dear! 🙂

    Reply
  10. ⚜ ↁℯℬℬᴵℰ⚜ says

    April 27, 2011 at 7:58 PM

    Love Picasa and I love Picnik too. I just heard about Photoshop and see that is really great, however, not necessarily free. Thanks for the tips girls!

    Reply
  11. Kim @ Quit Eating Out {Recipes to Make Dining Out a Choice, Not a Chore} says

    April 27, 2011 at 1:49 PM

    What a great post! Love this new blog and all of your great posts. I’m definitely struggling with photo editing and this is super helpful!!! Have a super day Friends!

    Reply
  12. Jenn says

    April 28, 2011 at 2:04 AM

    Great tutorial!! I have been wondering how to add a watermark. I will definitely be exploring some photo editing! Following you!

    Reply
  13. Lisa says

    April 28, 2011 at 5:34 AM

    Hi Heather! Thank you for your kind comments. You are so encouraging. I hope that your talk goes really well. You will do a great job!

    Reply
  14. Mindy @ Heart Maine Home says

    April 28, 2011 at 12:02 PM

    Thanks for all these tips! I’ve been using Picasa to edit my photos, but haven’t tried Picnik yet, so I think I will (that neutralize thing sounds awesome). Thanks again!

    Reply
  15. Courtney ~ French Country Cottage says

    April 28, 2011 at 5:18 AM

    This is INSANE!!! ! I use my photo editing software that came with my computer… an upload it to the blog. That’s it!! You know how long I have wondered about the whole picasa thing…the piknic (sp?)thing and the watermark!! Thanks so much for this informative post- I will have to try it out for sure! 🙂

    Reply
  16. Kim @ Cheap Chic Home says

    April 28, 2011 at 1:05 PM

    What great tips. I love Picasa, but don’t store my photos with them. Thanks for the heads up on “sharpen” I’ve clicked on that, but not noticed anything much. I’ll try it again.

    Reply
  17. Christy says

    August 9, 2011 at 3:04 PM

    Okay I have a question. After you edit your picture, how do you upload it back to blogger?

    Reply
  18. Gina says

    March 27, 2012 at 12:31 PM

    This is a wonderful tutorial, however.. I have looked and looked again, I do not have the picasa option on my dashboard? what am I doing wrong?

    I am new to visiting your blog, and I love it. thank you for all this blog love.

    gina

    Reply
  19. Hilda says

    June 4, 2012 at 5:07 AM

    I love these tutorials & look forward to applying lot of these tips to improve my pics! Like Gina in the comment above, I can’t find picasa on my dashboard either. I know Blogger recently changed their layout… can you tell me where this is on the new layout? Thanks!

    Reply

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This is one of my most favorite projects from my b This is one of my most favorite projects from my book Life in Season! 

Because, if heaven has a fragrance, I’m fairly certain it smells like lilacs.

I think that somewhere along the way the verse in the Bible that said, ‘heaven will smell like lilacs’ just got lost in translation. But it HAD to have been in there at some point, right?

When I bury my head in the blossoms (which I absolutely MUST do every single time I walk past them), I immediately feel a stirring in my soul.

It seems like I wait forever for my lilac tree to bloom. Every year I anxiously watch as the buds begin to form on the branches and then when the blossoms finally burst forth I begin that agonizing process of deciding the absolute perfect moment to snip them and bring them inside.

And then, after all of that waiting and watching it’s just over…done. Because, unlike heaven, lilacs don’t last for an eternity. So, making my own lilac room spray seemed like the perfect way to enjoy their fragrance long after the blossoms have faded.

Here’s how to make it! Ingredients: Water, Vodka, Lilac fragrance oil. Directions: Fill spray bottle with 50/50 ratio of water to vodka. Add 12 drops of lilac oil. Give it a shake, spray and if the scent isn’t strong enough, simply add a few more drops of lilac oil.

Once you’ve made this lilac scented room spray you will be very tempted to spray it in every room in your house. And someone may want to use it in the bathroom to cover up other less…ummmm….pleasing aromas.

But, do not, I repeat do NOT, let them.

You’ve captured the fragrance of heaven in a bottle and you wouldn’t want to go and tarnish it now would you? 😉
We had two back to back days of sunshine (the most We had two back to back days of sunshine (the most we’ve had in a LONG time) and now we are back to pouring rain. This has officially confirmed what I’ve know to be true for awhile now.

I’m a MUCH better version of myself when the sun is shining! 🤪 So I’ll just be over here today plotting and planning how my husband and I can be snowbirds someday when the kids are out of the house.

If you could spend your winters (and apparently most of spring too!) in any part of the country, where would it be?
Happy weekend sweet friends!! We’ve had a LOT of Happy weekend sweet friends!! We’ve had a LOT of rain lately (which is saying something when you live in Oregon) and I’ll admit that it’s affecting my moods a bit. I feel like I’m dragging and struggling to find the energy to get stuff done. So don’t mind me if I’m over here looking at photos of my garden in the summertime and finding that it keeps me hopeful about those days to come. They will come, right?! 🤪. 

What are your favorite plants that you look forward to seeing in the summer?
We’re going to be giving our laundry room a make We’re going to be giving our laundry room a makeover soon. It’s LONG overdue! In fact, the folks from the counter company were just here taking measurements. While we have made some simple, inexpensive updates over the years, it still has many of the original elements from when the house was built in 1992.

Two of our bathrooms are also in need of major makeovers. And we’ve saved up enough money over the years to tackle those projects. But, for the most part, we made the decision to use the bulk of that money in another way. While we knew that it was financially wise to invest in our house, we also knew that the greatest investment we could make was in our children. 

I’ll admit, there are times where I see other people doing massive overhauls of their entire home in a matter of months and I feel a prick of envy. But, we decided that if our choice was between waiting a bit longer to enjoy a renovated bathroom or going on adventures as a family, we would choose adventures every time. And we don’t regret that decision for a single second. It’s not that we haven’t tackled home projects (we’ve done a lot!). It’s just that it’s been a slow and steady process. 

Most recently, we let our son pick where we would travel for spring break since this is his senior year of high school and we are trying to make up for lost time. With so much of life ‘paused’ for two years, we have appreciated these moments more than ever. And, since he’ll be heading to college in the fall, we are very aware of how important it is to spend this time together while we still have a modicum of control over everyone’s schedules.

We have many years left to remodel our home but only so much time left to make memories with our children.

And, while I’m always happy to look around my home and see rooms that are updated and more reflecting of our style, it doesn’t compare to the joy I feel when I look around my home and see the people I love the most who have been shaped by the many adventures we’ve experienced together.
Happy Saturday!! After endless days of rain (and h Happy Saturday!! After endless days of rain (and hail and snow) we are finally getting some sunshine and warmer temperatures. I’ll be honest, it’s really affected my spirits having one gloomy day after the next. So this is a much needed reprieve. Our cherry trees are showing off outside my kitchen window and we plan to get outside and make the most of these days while we have them.

What’s the weather like where you are?
“The devil, darkness, and death may swagger and “The devil, darkness, and death may swagger and boast, the pangs of life will sting for a while longer, but don’t worry; the forces of evil are breathing their last. Not to worry…HE’S RISEN!” (Charles R. Swindoll).

Happy Easter! He is risen indeed!
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; he has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him.

He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried; yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 

But he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed.

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. (Isaiah 53)
I try to always remember to put a water bottle in I try to always remember to put a water bottle in my car before I go to pick up my daughter from school. She didn't ask me to do this, but a few months ago I began to notice that she was often thirsty when she would get in the car. Her water bottle filled up at the beginning of the day was empty by the time school got out and she would ask if she could have some water from my hydroflask. So I make sure to have one waiting for her. It's just a simple thing, really. But, I want her to know that I'm paying attention, that I see her.

Isn't it amazing how small gestures can make us feel less invisible? Knowing that someone is thinking of us and takes the time to meet a need that we might not have even realized we had? These little acts can have big impacts. What is something that someone has done for you recently that made you feel valued and seen?

What have you done for someone else to remind them that you are paying attention to their needs?

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
― Charles Dickens
“The next day the large crowd that had come to t “The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’ – John 12:9-19
#palmsunday
When the Lord blesses you with a glimpse of the pa When the Lord blesses you with a glimpse of the payoff of your investment in your children, it is truly one of the greatest gifts. We had that experience twice this week with our 18 year old son and were overwhelmed by this opportunity we had to watch as he handled two very different situations (one personal and one professional) with grace, maturity, integrity and courage. Those of you mamas of little ones, don't ever minimize the job you are doing in raising this next generation. 

Every story read at bedtime
Every correction made to strengthen character
Every outdoor exploration
Every nose wiped
Every bandaid applied
Every time you say no when the world says yes
Every night of helping with homework
Every difficult conversation
Every prayer uttered

The final pieces of the puzzle of his childhood are falling into place and the picture revealed is one that is more wonderful than we could have imagined. And we know that it is only by God's grace on us as we sought His wisdom and guidance that we have come to this point. We have been FAR from perfect parents, but one of my most sincere prayers for the past 18 years was that the Lord would stand in the gaps that were surely to be revealed by our imperfections. And He has answered those prayers again and again. He's taken my humble petitions and most sincere intentions and knocked our socks off with the young man we are so privileged to call our son. And we can’t wait to watch as his future unfolds!
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